Train heads west into the Crowsnest Pass

The Crow Rate, or Crowsnest Freight Rate, was a rail transportation subsidy benefiting

farmer A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, raising living organisms for food or raw materials. The term usually applies to people who do some combination of raising field crops, orchards, vineyards, poultry, or other livestock. A farmer m ...

s on the

Canadian Prairies The Canadian Prairies (usually referred to as simply the Prairies in Canada) is a region in Western Canada. It includes the Canadian portion of the Great Plains and the Prairie Provinces, namely Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. These provin ...

and manufacturers in Central Canada by rate requirements imposed on the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) by the

Government of Canada The government of Canada (french: gouvernement du Canada) is the body responsible for the federal administration of Canada. A constitutional monarchy, the Crown is the corporation sole, assuming distinct roles: the executive, as the ''Crown ...

in exchange for financing and other benefits.

Origin

In the late 19th century, mineral strikes in southeastern BC near Nelson, Ainsworth, Rossland, Kaslo, Kimberley and Moyie inspired American rail interests to push lines northward, to rail out ore and to provide machinery and supplies needed for the development of local smelters. Both the Canadian government and the CPR wanted an all-Canadian rail line to forestall this American access and to reassert Canadian sovereignty in the area. A rail line was planned from

Lethbridge, Alberta Lethbridge ( ) is a city in the province of Alberta, Canada. With a population of 101,482 in its 2019 municipal census, Lethbridge became the fourth Alberta city to surpass 100,000 people. The nearby Canadian Rocky Mountains contribute to ...

to Kootenay Landing near Nelson, British Columbia through the

Crowsnest Pass Crowsnest Pass (sometimes referred to as Crow's Nest Pass, french: link=no, col du Nid-de-Corbeau) is a low mountain pass across the Continental Divide of the Canadian Rockies on the Alberta– British Columbia border. Geography The pass is ...

, which would also enable the development of

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when ...

deposits in the Pass and the Elk River valley, important both for mineral smelting operations and for the CPR's conversion of locomotives from wood to coal.R.G. Harvey ''Carving the Western Path, Routes to Remember'' Heritage House Publishing, 2006 The CPR needed government funding and concessions for the construction of this rail line, and the negotiated agreement between the CPR and the Canadian government was contained in the "Crowsnest Pass Agreement" dated September 6, 1897. Amongst other things, the CPR agreed to provide reduced rail rates for farmers' grain shipped east to the Great Lakes and for farm machinery shipped west from central Canada "forever". The Crow Rate was suspended by the CPR during World War One and reinstated in 1922.

End of "Forever"

Although popular with farmers exporting grains, these reduced rates were not cost-effective for the railway and provided central Canadian manufacturers and grain ports with an unfair advantage. By the early 1980s, the government attempted to resolve the problems between the competing interests by altering the agreement. The '' Western Grain Transportation Act'' of 1983 allowed shipping rates to increase, but never more than 10% of the world price for grain. In addition, further cash payments were made by the government to the CPR. With the

election An election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has opera ...

of the

Liberal Liberal or liberalism may refer to: Politics * a supporter of liberalism ** Liberalism by country * an adherent of a Liberal Party * Liberalism (international relations) * Sexually liberal feminism * Social liberalism Arts, entertainment and m ...

government of Jean Chrétien in 1993, the new government took steps to eliminate the subsidies altogether. This was implemented in 1995 through the Western Grain Transition Payment Program, which provided one-time payments to farmers to assist them in making the transition away from subsidized shipping.

References

External links

*Video o
CBC archives

Canadian Encyclopedia
entry.

* ttp://www.agrivision.ca/pdf/other/historydoc.pdf ''"The New Pioneers" Saskatchewan: The History of Agriculture'' {{Economy of Canada footer Canadian Pacific Railway Agriculture in Canada Rail_freight_transport_in_Canada Economy of Canada Transport economics Subsidies 1897 introductions 1905 endings